Continuous web design is a process that's become more popular with businesses—and more necessary—due to the constant changing tastes of online customers. After all, if “the customer is always right” and what that customer wants is always shifting, it stands to reason that you should be ready to shift your marketing and selling strategies over time as well.
Otherwise known as growth-driven design, continuous web design is starting to move ahead of traditional design practices. Since websites can quickly become outdated, the traditional model isn't always viable, especially in fast-paced industries.
The "one and done" design concept was once a standard method, before the Internet became a booming metropolis. Now with a fickler public and web design trends coming and going faster, it's smarter to evolve your site over a set period of time.
This same principle applies to targeting and whether you're really reaching the proper demographics to make you successful. With traditional web design, you're sometimes guessing what people want before it's created. It works differently with a continuous web design plan.
So how can you use this process to make it work for your web project? Planning properly is essential, because it involves more strategy to create a site quickly without any waste.
Finding A Solution For Web Redesigns
If you have to redesign your site this year, you're probably realizing that it'll take more time than you realized. Once you find out you'll have to rebuild from the bottom up, it can start to bring considerable downtime. A redesign could even take months of time you don't have.
Rather than get stuck in this expensive trap, continuous web design develops your site through cycles. Basically, it works through two initial steps: the launch phase, and then the growth cycle.
Using smart strategy, you'll have a larger team finding information about potential users so development becomes more targeted.
Research, And Working On A Wish List
Developing buyer personas around what kind of customers you need is where growth-driven design and traditional design meet. That's about the only similarity between the two concepts during web development. This means finding exactly what your prospective users want to see on your site.
Afterward, you'll want to work with your designers on a design wish list so you have a number of ideas at the ready. By doing this, you'll have a catalog of content that may or may not make the final cut. It's here where you'll see how continuous web design works in ensuing months.
Now you'll have an available design toy box available to apply once you begin gauging user reactions.
Working Through the Growth-Driven Cycle
Most continuous web design plans work through an 11-month cycle where you add or subtract elements based on the response of your users. By studying metrics once a month, you can see what content people are responding to and what's isn't working.
More research can take place through direct contact with your users and asking them what they want or don't want. Based on your prior wish list, you can quickly add what's needed based on what you prioritized high impact, medium impact, or low impact.
It's worth noting that while it does take more financial resources to keep your design constantly developing, the ROI will more than pay for the expense. Because you'll be constantly keeping your site fresh and in tune with what customers respond to, you won't have a design working on mere hunches or partial research. Never again will you have to worry about having an outdated website you can't revamp!
